Comedy Acting for Theatre

Sub-titled The Art and Craft of Performing in Comedies it explores why we laugh

And what we laugh at

And how performers can best elicit this response from their audience

Rooted in performance and performance criticism, authors Sidney Homan and Brian Rhinehart provide a detailed explanation of how comedy works and how to communicate comedy from the point of view of both performer and audience

Combining theory and performance, the authors analyse a variety of plays, both modern and classic

Playwrights featured include Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Christopher Durang, and Michael Frayn

And in a special section, acting in Shakespeare's comedies is covered in depth

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One: Playing the Comic Actor
Chapter Two: Comic Truth and Acting
Chapter Three: Energy and Intensity
Chapter Four: Elements of Comedy for Audience and Actor
Chapter Five: Playing the Whole Comedy
Chapter Six: All's Well That ....
Chapter Seven: Why We Laugh
Chapter Eight: Improv and the Comic Actor

REVIEWS

"If "dying is easy and comedy is hard", then Sidney Homan and Brian Rhinehart, accomplish a death-defying feat in bringing, with ease: the science, the practices and the dangers of being truly funny on stage" ~ Dexter Bullard, The Theatre School at DePaul University and Broadway Director